The Ebay Nigeria Scam
Having recently encountered this scam and not been able to find information about it easily I thought I’d blog it and put it all in one place.
- What is the Ebay Nigeria Scam?
- The scammers will have newly registered IDs (quite often registered that very day) with fake addresses in various countries including the Netherlands and the UK but they actually live in Nigeria. They persuade the seller to send the goods on receipt of a fake payment confirmation email, eg. from Paypal, Nochex, banks, Bidpay (which in reality no longer exists) or other payment services. Or just by promising payment. The seller sends the item to Nigeria but the promised postal/money order or payment never materialises. They target new sellers of relatively expensive items, especially mobile phones and other electronic goods.
- How to deal with them?
- eBay are usually quick to suspend these scammers.
- Go to: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/contact_us/_base/index.html and select: Problems with other members > Continue > Fraud concerns for sellers > Buyer paid/attempted to pay with fake/stolen funds > Continue > Email Us. Also I mentioned in this message that it was a classic Nigeria Scam.
- Go to: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/identity-false.html and report them for having a fake address. I also added that it was a Nigerian scam.
- What next?
- I got a few emails from eBay saying they were looking into the problem. Then approx 2 days later I received confirmation that the scammer had had their account disabled.
Once the account is disabled you can file for your final value fees back: http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CreateDispute
Then you can go and relist your item. - To prevent it happening again.
-
- Block bidders with no credit card on file - the last option on here:
http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BuyerBlockPreferences
Blocking those with zero feedback should be sufficient as the scammers will be newly registered (often the same day they bid) with no feedback and of course no card on file. Blocking bidders with low feedback but no credit card may prevent some genuine new bidders but choose what you’re comfortable with. You can also list to sell in the UK only and use another option on the above link to block bidders from outside the UK (although don’t rely on that one, some of these scammers register fake addresses in the UK to get around the block). - If you prefer Paypal anyway you can also use Immediate (Paypal) Payment on your listing, then the listing cannot end without payment being made:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/immediatepayment.html
To do that, during the listing process select to sell Fixed Price Only (or Buy It Now and auction but then you must use a reserve to keep the BIN and Immediate Payment if a bid is placed.) and you’ll see the link to use Immediate Payment on the payment page, just below the Paypal logo. - But please also be aware of credit card scams, usually (but not only) from Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, where they pay using Paypal but use stolen or fake credit cards so the money is withdrawn by Paypal later. Do not accept Paypal payment for expensive items from these and other scam areas. If necessary issue a refund and report fake funds to eBay as above.
If in doubt about a buyer please ask for advice on one of the Community boards.
- Block bidders with no credit card on file - the last option on here:
Most of this information came from a post on the Ebay forums by Peaseblossom. Just doing my bit to make the information easier to find.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Hey, very good article. Just ran into this scam myself, thanks for the advice :).
March 31st, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Hi,
I just had exactly the same too. On a mobile phone as you said and with fake payment email. Luckily ebay had suspended their account before i sent it so seemed fishy straight away.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
hi,thankyou very much. I needed the part about blocking zero feedback as I had the scam done to me on a mobile phone I was selling (I knew straight away it was a scam and I was livid with anger) and now I am getting dodgy bids on another item (sat nav) ending in an hour.
Thanks again
April 26th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Hi had this scam tried on me thought it was fishy from the start but went along
With it till I could check it out, kept asking for my full name and address
So they could send postal orders, also think they want UK names and address
To use so if in doubt don’t send any info try to check address 1st if they ask
You to post to Nigeria then if you do its at your own risk.
Also if you get one report to EBay ASAP
Thanks for the tips above have put them on my EBay account.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
Hi, so glad for you web page. I found it very useful. I find it hard to say that I had never heard of the Nigeria scams and recently fell victim to one. I am american and sell on ebay and daily get about 5 Nigeria scam emails attached to my auctions. I have taken your advise and used the blocking tool. Thanks so much!
April 30th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
I had this only this week, the person sent a fake email from paypal advising that they had taken the funds from the buyers account and that it would be transferred into my account once I had given them the tracking number. Thought their was something dodgy when he said it was for his son, he had an english name and his son’s name was clearly foreign. Then there was the fact that he seemed in such a hurry to receive the phone, and the so called new procedure paypal have implemented to prevent fraud which is by providing a tracking number, what a joke.
He / she was still trying to get the phone and e-mailing me despite the fact that they are no longer registered with ebay, no doubt now he / she has re-registered using somebody elses details. Thankfully when I enquired at the post office as I thought it was dodgy they told me about this scam, the person (ebbphil22) now has nagative feedback which somebody managed to give before they ended their account with ebay.
Anyway sorry for all the rambling but I am angry that this happening and they seem to be getting away with it.
DO NOT SEND ANYTHING BEFORE YOU HAVE BEEN PAID FOR IT, AND EVEN THEN BE CAREFUL IF THEY ARE ASKING YOU TO SEND TO NIGERIA AS THEY MAY BE USING A STOLEN CREDIT CARD.
May 13th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Hahah I just ran into the same and found your website. The guy emailed (AFTER having picked “buy it now”) to ask about the phone’s condition. He said he’s American (in barely readable English) and that I should ship to his son in Nigeria. I told him shipping to Nigeria is $50 (on a $75 phone that will only work in USA) and that I would ship just as soon as paypal has deposited his funds into my bank account. Can’t wait to see his response! Thanks for putting this site together.
May 29th, 2006 at 8:35 am
When the auction ended last night on my mobile phone I was quite excited with my first foray into the world of ebay selling. When I saw that the winner was registered in the US and I’d listed the item as “UK only”, my first thought wasn’t fraud, it was more the hassle of finding postage prices, getting back to him, wondering about customs implications etc. Then I get his e-mail saying the phone is a gift for his uncle in Nigeria and that he’s happy to round-up his generous estimate on the shipping costs to £30. Even to someone new to ebay such as me, the deal looked fishy. That’s when tools like Google prove really useful. I found your excellent article (and many others like it), plus I could check his US address and ran Google-Earth, only to find that it looks like he lives in the Empire State building. All the other symptoms of the scam appear to be present: he’s a new buyer (registered on the day of purchase) and, late last night I received the very professional looking, but nonetheless fake e-mails from PayPal.
Thanks for clearly explaining the Scam on your blog!
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:43 pm
call me stupid but as a first time seller i just fell for this and didnt think anything of it. luckily i asked my friend (another ebay seller) if it was normal to supply a shipping number to paypal before you receive the funds? he said not straight away and informed me of these scams - i didnt want to believe him at first….i wanted the generous amount he’d just offered to pay for my phone to mail to his son working in Nigeria that he misses loads!! …bless
one thing though - his ebay account wasnt a new account - he’d been an ebay member since 5th December 1998 and had great feedback (100% from 64 people - and the people that had left feedback had good feedback scores themelves dating back to quite sometime) regarding making payment on other items he had bought though he had not purchased anything in the past 12months?? - just something else to be aware of.
also if you try supplying a shipping number to the link on the email you receive from the apparent paypal email then it links to yahoo (thats when i asked my friend about supplying a shipping number because i dont have a yahoo account)
September 5th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Had this attempted with me this week. Was selling a professional video camera, but then had emails from people selling similar items warning me that they were recieving scam attempts.
Firstly got an email saying that they were away on business in Australia, and that the camera was a gift for their son who studies in Nigeria, then an estimate of postage costs, that was so far off.
Got the fake PayPal email last night and so forwarded it to PayPal’s spoof checking email.
Very ngry about the whole situation, but really glad I didnt fall for it. As others have said though, my buyer did have good ratings on their eBay account although they had changed the account details that day and then proceeded to get around 16 negative feedbacks in 24hours.
Hope people see this site and protect themselves from this scam.
September 10th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Just to highlight an additional aspect to this - don’t be reassured simply because someone has good feedback levels. I have heard of several cases where people with good feedback have their account hijacked by people who are perpetuating this scam. So be aware that the person you are dealing with is not necessarily the original owner of the eBay account.
September 18th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
My hubby’s first sale on ebay has fallen foul of this scam X2. First we had email from a Linda McGorrigan - very British sounding but the text was all wrong saying she would pay an alarming amount of money for the phone and we should not worry as she had 100% feedback - no doubt a stolen ID. Later we had the ’send to my lovely son in Nigeria’ scam and they will pay the postage with another English sounding name. ebay have confirmed this is a stolen identity. Now we have to wait 7 days to abort the sale and re-list. Why are we letting these people in the country?
October 9th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I have just fallen foul to the the same scam. My item a PS2 with games was snapped up within hours. Same thing goin to Nigeria for a son in infant spelling. they sent a fake payment of paypal saying about the tracking number. But the really funny thing was the e-mail after.. Seller i have paid you the balance of £425 please post immediately thank-you for helping with postage of the phone… (PHONE) yes thats correct a flippin phone, do not re-ply to these ass-holes just report and laugh
October 12th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
I found out the scam my self the other day and after finding out it is correct i found your site after looking up to see if it happens often.
I got the paypal email, knew it was fishy strait away. Just another hint for people, spelling or “slang” words will not be used by paypal or any other large company for legal reasons. So when they use words like “info” instead of information or “soundn” instead of sounding for instance. Do your background research and email paypal to ask if it is a valid email.
The other one is, if they tell you its been taken out of their account and approved and it takes 4-5 days to show in your account. Its definetly a scam, because any transaction wil show up strait away in your paypal account. If there is a wait on transaction it will still show up on your paypal account but with processing next to the payment. where as the scam will not have any history of any transaction being made in your paypal account.
Also I had another one yesterday asking me for all my details as well as my licence number. *** DO NOT EVER give out your details of licence number etc etc.
At the end of the day, the safest way to bid is to remain inside ebay and no off the side deals. It will end in tears most of the time other wise.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:55 am
Tank good for your sight I found a scammer 15 , Nov , 2006, on ebay the person no longer registed at ebay.
Eaby sellers be careful of postal order payments, address destinations to nigeria. luckly I didnot sell him any items. Use paypaL..
December 20th, 2006 at 3:06 am
I just got screwed over twice by the same scam. Ebay told me to relist the item after the first time. And within 5 mins, the same thing happened again. I am really pissed, but I should have used the restriction to prevent new ebay bidders
January 17th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
So, do Ebay pay me the amount they bid?
February 9th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
hi im chris and nearly was scamed with this. I was selling a laptop for £500.00 and i had a person with a ebay id as: riontrigger. I was selling my item for £500.00 and he overed me £900.00 plus p&p of £40.00 which at the time thought was a good idea. But then i thought why would someone pay that mad ammount to someone you dnt know. He also said he wants it packed with a note saying: Hey love we realy missed you alot. The kids cant wait to see you. From your love forever. And for me to send it to nigeria… Then he said he will make the payment if i un list my item before the bidding ends. So then i got a email from paypal saying that i had recieved payment from him but then i checked my pay pal account and there was no sign of it so i reported it to everyone. Including paypal, Ebay and here. Do not fall for these scams if they offer you more mouny then you are asking for then you know that it is to good to be true!!! Good Luck Everyone!
February 21st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
i had the same thing done last week on my mobile phone i sold. she was determined to get me to send it to Nigeria for her grandson, when i clearly told her it would not work and im not sending nothing till i get some hardcash. then she accused me of talking to her badly and to go online straight away. i refused and told her to go and scam someone in her own country.
these people just make me so angry, there is hardly anything in this world that isnt targeted by crime anymore
February 28th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Thank you. Was just about to send a phone to Nigeria that I had sold when I stumbled across this web site while looking to see if the £40.00 offered to me was sufficant to cover the postage costs. Having read these comments I let go to see what would happen and sure enough the paypal e mail arrived with tracking numbers etc. This person had stolen somebody elses account so there was positive feedback to about 75. Thanks to these mesaages we still have the phone and also the postage we might of shelled out to post to Nigeria
March 8th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
hi my husband was selling a phone, bid ended within 1 hour didnt think anything of it. had email saying needed ref number for the post. sent it!!! weve had to get a crime number from the police!!
March 8th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
this is the address went sent 2: john adewale, 120 kujore street,ojota lagos nigeria 23401 his email brownn_john25@yahoo.com made an address up for the surrey area
March 14th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Some other things that are giveaways include
1. He or she is paying more than the item is worth
2. Buyer is from UK but shipping to Nigeria.
3. There is always some sense of urgency conveyed in their emails to act now, sometimes even before you have provided a shipping quote.
4. Look at the shipping price it almost always >$200. Why would they pay that much rather than buying it locally.
5. Usually the item purchased is electronics/photography etc in nature.
6. Usually they have bid/won several orders at once so that they can get at least one item shipped before people start posting negative feedback.
7. Their written English is poor.
8. If you question them they get easily offended.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I ran into a nigerian scam recently. The guys name was dr.Federick Cole. He said he would pay 2100 for it when the bidding was 500 on a dell inspiron 6000 laptop. He wanted me to cancel the bidding. I canceled it and then he sent a spoof pay pal email. He said he wanted it shipped to his grand son in nigeria. I caught him in the act and never sent it. Thank God. Email me with questions Ryanmartin781@gmail.com
Ryan Martin
March 19th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Hi,
I have had problems with this a few times, once with a mobile phone.. and just today with a gold bracelet. It’s such a pain, especially when there are other buyers interested, and think now the item has been sold!
Thanks for your help, on this page!
Tanya.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I think I’m in the middle of trying to be scammed!
I’m selling a mobile phone on e-bay, and received an e-mail from a ‘Jackie Moore’, who wants to pay £320 if I close the auction, to send the phobe to his brother, who owns a mobile phone shop in Nigeria.
I sent him an invoice from PayPal, and received a VERY professional looking reply, saying payment had been made into my account, and could I provide the postal tracking ID.
However, this payment hasn’t been mirrored in my actual PayPal account.
Needless to say, I won’t be sending anything until the money is in my account (which I’m not holding my breath on!)
Hope this stops others from being scammed!
March 20th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
i just had the scam done to me…i actually rang him and he was clearly nigerian with an english name also i suppose when i get my phone bill that will be sky high….how long does it take till ebay give you relisting fee back…i have a gucci watch that realy needed selling in the 10 days i put it on for …for my holiday in 2 weeks…realy dissapointed thankyou so much for you site
March 20th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I sold my first item on ebay last night - which was also a mobile phone - an item that seems to be a particular favourite! Was offered a ridiculous amount for it and instantly knew something was up - had no idea this scam was so big!
The thing that annoyed me more than anything was ebay charge the fee based on the winning bid so if this is a huge amount you can end up seriously out of pocket until you reclaim the fees even if you don’t fall for the scam!
Wish ebay had pushed the blocking bidders options more to me when I set up my listing!
March 21st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
That is right brother!!! I had the same thing happen to me today. But this was something that cost a whole lot more. Anyway don’t sent it if they don’t sent the money in your account first, so you can get their money to ship it to them. You don’t want to ship the item out of your own money. Thankyou for sharing your experience. I hope other people won’t fall in for this damn sheme.
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:01 am
I had the same problem twice this week. They offer a large amount of Money for you item and try to get you to end the auction. And of course I did the first time. I recieved a fake verification from paypal, that looks real!!! I looked into the situation because it seemed fishey and thank god I did. The Scam is they want you to ship the item out and confirm a tracking number to a fake paypal and then the funds will be available to you! They even gave me a tranaction ID #, email ID #, the whole 9 yards. The one thing they missed is hopefully you or anyone else would never ship an item until Money SHOWS available to you! I just hope ebay could refund final value fees quiker, especially when you have a $100.00 item sell for an un- expected $600.00, and you get charged for it and never get paid.. This is getting old and costly!! We all need to spread the word of this scam quickly to everyone. EBAY needs to find a way to resolve this for us sellers in a timely manor. This scam puts a dent in the pockets even if you dont fall for the scam!
April 5th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I’ve been trying to sell some mobile phones on ebay this week, and so far I’ve had 10 attempts by people to buy the phones to send to Nigeria. Each one has been reported to ebay and the account suspended.
Ebay are very quick to refund the fees you pay for the listing the item, but aren’t so keen to refund the Final Value Fees (the percentage you pay of the final selling price). I am now fed up of emailing ebay twice a day (at least) to report these scammers and request my fees back.
I thought these scams finally seemed to be slowing down, when an item was finally bid on by a legitimate looking bidder, but now I seem to be suffering from a new scam! In the last minute, the bid went up to £1,019, leaving me with fees of £20 to pay.
If you think the bidder is dodgy, use the advanced search function - items by bidder tool to look up their user ID. You will usually find that if it’s a scam several high value goods will have bought over a very short period of time. One that I had yesterday had bought at least 20 mobile phones, several PSP’s and playstations!
April 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I too have just been the victim of a John Brown who “bought” a mobile phone I was selling, Ive decided I am going to have a laugh at this guys expense just wind him up a little. I have seen a few listings that state no Nigerian bidders and so realised that it was a scam straight away. you would think that a site such as Ebay would be more vigilant in who they let register and should maybe start charging a refundable fee from a credit or debit card in the registered users name so to discourage fraudsters. These people must think we are born without a brain and are happy to send out our expensive items without any payment. I do genuinely feel for those who are gullible or too trusting and actually send the items. Ebay and Paypal should also make it’s users aware of these scams so that they don’t fall for them.
April 6th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
IM IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THESE RIGHT NOW,IM JUST HAVING FUN WITH THE GUY HES TRIED GIVING ME THE FAKE PAYPAL MESSAGE AND THE FAKE USPS MONEY ORDER GRAM, I TOLD HIM HE COULD SEND ME THE SHIPPING LABEL AND I THINK IM GONNA SHIP HIM SOME DIRTY UNDERWEAR OR SOME ROTTING FOOD OR SOMETHING,LOL, WHO BUYS AN XBOX FOR 350$? LETS START A THREAD WITH ALL THE PHONY “AMERICAN” NAMES THEY GIVE US,MINE WAS “MIKE STONEBRACKER”
April 20th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I’m dealing with someone who lives here in the US(aparently) and ‘has’ a grandson in Nigeria, serving ‘our beloved country’ , as this person states.
I think i’d like to catch this person and prosecute, but i don’t know how.
Right now he(she) just sent me this ‘Paypal confirmation’, changed already the email for the new one, and rushes me to send right way.
I’m just wondering if ebay is so quick to localize the scam, could it also republish the add i put there and start over counting the days i already paied from the point it stopped.
Also, if someone knows if
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Hi,
I have just been hit with this scam also. This person (calling themselves Mrs Dale Spencer) claims a friend is opening a electrical store in Nigeria and wants the phone shipped, even though its UK Bidders only. I’m leading them on, and reported them to both Ebay & Paypal (received the fake paypal mail).
Eighty Pound to ship a mobile to Nigeria!
Once I relist I shall include a link to here to warn others.
In the mean time I shall have some fun with this idiot!
October 26th, 2007 at 2:05 am
I have just been exposed to this scam today. The person won a bid on my item, he wrote me a long story and send it through ebay to my email. here’s the detail…
Hello Friend, I am very sorry for the late response. My grandfather fell sick three days ago and I have been supporting him in this time of struggle for our family, so i have been staying with him at the hospital, please bear with me and be understanding. I am happy that i bought your item. Actually i bought this item for my son who is currently Studying at the University of Ibadan as a lovely birthday gift to him and i am so sorry for not getting you aware of the shipment I have just sent the payment via PayPal to your PayPal account and the money has been deducted from my account immediately i received the confirmation email for the payment from PayPal. Moreover, i have included more than enough fund to the payment for the shipping of item, in order to cover the shipping and insurance expenses and the stress it may cause you. So kindly get me informed immediately the item is shipped today and make sure the item is shipped strictly via USPS (GLOBAL EXPRESS MAIL) only….Please make sure that you do not declare any worth or value on the item at the post office when shipping out the item, Just declare it as a gift item.
This is my son’s address:
Temitope Adewale
22, Anfani Layout
Off Ring Road
Ibadan
Oyo State, 23402
Nigeria.
West Africa.
Telephone Number: 2348030719160
Hopefully, anyone outthere.. should be aware about this… pretty scary, huh
November 15th, 2007 at 4:49 am
The Nigerian scamsters bidding on your expensive electronic items, are a pain in the ass. I had to relist my item several times as these Nigerian scamsters used to click on “Buy it Now” and end the auction.
Tips
1) Try not to use Buy it now if it can be helped. Usually these scamsters wont hang around for the auction, and even if they bid you can cancel their bid.
2) Never send an item, without getting paid for it.
3) Report to ebay.
4) After eBay closed their account - I received a fake email saying that it was a mistake and their account has been restored. You can see it was fake as the reply to address was notification@soon.com.
So thats that. Also I played with the scamster and gave him my online stockbrokers bank account ..saying please deposit the money there. That pissed him off HA !
December 20th, 2007 at 1:57 am
i just lost a psp silver with acc through the same scam..the email they sent saying the payemnet was secure looked so real…..anyways i called usps since i sent it a day ago thro global express…but they said it was in customs and nth they could do for me…i’m not a rich man so scams liek this hurt..altho the scam is well known people like me fall victum everyday
December 27th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Looks like we’ll all have to do it the hard way, i.e. log into paypal to check transfer.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:39 pm
just got scammed by this as well,winning bidder emailed me saying in very poor english tht his son was studying in nigeria and tht he has sent him a picture of the phone , and for me to send it to him which he will cover the costs of 40 pounds , i then got a email from paypal stating tht if i send them the tracking number they will send me the cash into my paypal account, stupid enough i belived him and sent the items bt nver recived the cash so iv reported them to the police and they r lukin into it, plus iv got sum1 claiming to be the son of the acc holder on ebay saying tht his dads acc was hijacked strange enought this came after i said he had to midnight to have the money into my acc r i will get the police , funny enough he got angry wen i told hm i reported the whole story to police he wanted me to nt include his dad sounds like a quilty person to me what do u guys think???
February 16th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Look what I got from the winning bidder today:
Well am very happy to be the winner of your eBay Item: ***removed*** Mobile Phone, please i will like to ask you if your can ship this item to my son in Africa,because my job wont allow me to send it to him myself,i am always at work so please i really need you help.I am sending it to him as a Birthday gift and i want it to be a surprise to him,so please i would really appreciate it if you can help me ship it over to him,i will pay all it cost to ship it there,so you just send me the total amount and i will like you to accept PAYPAL from me,i will appreciate it if you can help me send it through COLLISIMO 1ST CLASSS because it is faster,safer and reliable.
please get back to me ASAP……..about the shipping cost and i will make the payment immediately.
HERE IS THE ADDRESS
MICHAEL SMITH
16,UNITY ROAD
IKEJA
LAGOS STATE
23401
NIGERIA
February 28th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Just been scammed myself for an expensive camera. Stupidly sent the item and have now been scammed out of $520 because the emails i received looked genuine. I wish i had looked closer. Buyer was from england wanting camera sent to her son in nigeria and wanted the shipping tracking number. Don’t send anything if your gut instinct tells ou not to do the deal. Got emails supposedly from paypal but they were from a fraudulent email address. Also requested to send money via Western Union- clearly something was wrong so have emailed paypal and gumtree to report the woman in question. A complete scam and have subsequently lost out on $520 that i really could do with, hence why i was selling the camera. Basically don’t send an item if the price they are offering sounds too good, or the item is to be shipped to Nigeria etc. Report any suspicious emails to paypal, ebay, gumtree etc and report to the police as well. Keep safe
March 14th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Yes I was also scammmed. The worse part is that I actually fell for it all the way. I was selling a laptop and the person that bought it was from nigeria, and thair account actually said so, Unfortunatly at the time I was a new ebayer and I didn’t know about this kind of scam. The weird part was that the person had pretty good feedback from many sellers. Another ebayer who was also selling a laptop emailed me saying that this person seemed a little weird, rushing him into sending his laptop, just like me. What led me into sending the laptop was that the buyer said he would pay more, almost double than what I was asking. So I got a fake paypal reciept, saying that I needed to send tracking number before I can accept payment. So I fell for it and did lose a laptop. Be carefull about what you do. Make sure to see your payment before anything else.
March 29th, 2008 at 4:41 am
Hi,
I just ran into a nigeria scam today. I was just lucky enough to call the post office and have them track my package down and they found it right before it would have left the country!I just started to sell and buy on ebay and I have to say, since some people are screwing around with some sellers, it has gotten really hard to win some trust of some ebay sellers. In my case I just wanted to sell my first item and got screwed over with a fake paypal email!!!! Well, I sure learned my lesson. I`m very glad to found your web site and see that I`m not alone. Until today, I never heard of the nigerian scam!!!!
Thank god I was calling paypal. A amen for the telephone!!!!
Stefanie
April 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
This happened to me last week and I sent out an expensive mobile phone to this fraud in Nigeria after he sent fake paypal emails confirming payment for 750$.I realised the fraud after the shipment left US and USPS could do nothing because it had left the country.I got in touch with EMS Nigeria and one genuine person there helped me in getting it back.I got the phone back yesterday after 10 days.Every one might not be really lucky.I lost 150 bucks on the postage and phone calls.There is a EMS Nigerian website emsng.com for people who sent it through USPS Express mail international and need some help.They have all the office addresses and contacts for the different cities in Nigeria.
Never ship anything to Nigeria even if you are getting hell of a lot of money for your product.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I just ’sold’ a watch to a guy who wanted me to post it to a bus stop in Nigeria. They told me they had paid for the item etc etc and I should post it NOW!!! So I did. I posted a tupperware container filled with my cats poop
I would LOVE to see his face when he opens the package 
May 19th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
hello to all. you will not believe it i got caught twice in five hours by this very scam.the word police got them to back off pretty quick
June 5th, 2008 at 12:23 am
They’re a persistent bunch, aren’t they? I almost got done. A man (american by his profile) was asking me to send my XBox 360 with controllers and games to a friend of his, as quickly as possible, as it was for his birthday present. He went all out, setting up an “automated Bank message” from Barclays Bank (which is affiliated neither with America or with Nigeria) to say that i had to send them my shipment number and they would then deposit the money into my account. The Email contained banners of the bank, and contact emails, but none of the emails matched that of the real bank when i went to look at the website. As many, i am a new ebay person, so thought that the offer was incredible in the first place. offered me much more then i was asking, but me initial concern was made when the man had a typically southern american name (Gus), but had all of the grammatical errors of one who clearly did not have english as their first language. Luckily, i was a typically suspicious person about the whole deal in the first place, and am very glad, now that i’ve seen this blog, that i canceled the transaction. poor gus… now his friend doesnt get his wonderful xbox birthday present. scary how close we all came, and how so many people have lost out to these people. Really shatters internet shopping confidence, doesn’t it? i feel for anyone whose been hit by this.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
This scam almost got me too. First time I’ve ever tried to sell anything on ebay, a £300 camera! I got a few emails from the buyer, asking to ship it to his sister in Nigeria and if I could do it today using Royal Mail International Signed For. Also got a (Fake) email from PayPal saying
“The funds will be Credited into the seller’s account once the shipment has been verified. This action is taken in order to protect both seller and buyer’s interests and to reduce the occurrence of fraudulent activities”
I was half asleep and blindly following what they asked, then something inside me just said “wait a minute”, quick search and I found this. I think this is so easy to fall for, especially if you’re a first time seller and you aren’t expecting anything like this.
Commiserations to anyone who got caught by this.
Ebay really need to put information about this as part of their listing process!!!
Thanks for this post
June 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Hi there folks I was done a few weeks ago by a nigerian scam sending a camera and not getting any money for ir IM A FOOL but anyways the good thing is this morning i sent around 20 dog poos which ive been saving in my garden packed with dirty cat litter in a DVD player box and a little msg to go with it the thieving pieces of scum and it is well worth the £7 Postage and Packing charge
July 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Hi
I will like to ship phone to me,in care of Mrs Lucy Iloha.Below is the address.
NATIONAL ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL,
P.M.B 3087 DALA,
KANO;KANO STATE,
NIGERIA 23464.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hi,
I’ve had this scam this week. I got worried about it and emailed them politely saying that as I have a few concerns and because I listed UK only I would not be going through with the sale. I then had 2 emails whcih were quite convincing from ebay saying that my account had been suspended etc… it was similar to a scam a few years back but the email contained the details of the sale saying that if I did not post the item within 24hours my account would be permanently deleted and I would be banned from holding future accounts. This was a load of rubbush because it was only 48 hours after the sale and you would expect a little longer to get postage to nigeria!!
They also forgot to send me the fake payment email! duh! Im considering sending some of my dogs finest. Thanks for the inspiration!